The Objectives and Structure of Undergraduate Projects — I

The arena in which one may expect to see the broadest number of changes and the highest potential for dramatic demonstration of the effectiveness of educational technology will be in the developing nations of the world. The primary reasons for this suggestion are that the severity of educational problems in these countries — a severity of crisis proportions — and the hypothesis that these nations are not as strongly committed to the old-fashioned paradigms as are the more developed nations. The heavy pressure to increase both the quality and quantity of education, and to increase education's contribution to the nation's growth, are causing many to look hopefully toward educational technology. The technological approach, building on the base which it has developed over the past fifteen years, should be able to demonstrate that it is capable of meeting the challenge. One certainly hopes it will.     

Practice-Based Design of Information Systems: Notes from the Hyperdeveloped World

This paper offers reflections on information systems design based in everyday practices. Drawing on experience in what I name the hyperdeveloped world of industrial research and development in the United States, I outline a series of concerns, organized under the themes of information flows, local improvisations and work practices. I then offer a set of alternative understandings of change and innovation that underwrite a practice-based design approach. These include a view of innovation as indigenous to technologiesin-use, an emphasis on the investments needed to create sustainable change, and an orientation to artful integration as an objective for information systems design.     

The effect of Braille orthography on blind children’s phonological awareness

Little is known about the phonological awareness and literacy skills of children who are blind. Fifteen 7–12 year old blind children were assessed on standardised measures of intelligence, spelling and reading. They performed poorer when reading than their chronological age would predict. Their phonological awareness skills were compared with a sighted group matched for chronological age (CA). The blind children performed poorer than the CA matched group. In a second experiment, the effect of Braille orthography on phonological awareness was investigated by comparing blind and CA matched children’s ability to segment heard words, which are written in Braille with and without contractions. Words with Braille contractions were less well segmented by the blind children. The results suggest that the nature of the orthography learned affects phonological awareness.     

Merging Academics and Police Training: Washington State University’s Department of Police Science and Administration and the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965

The Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 prompted a nationwide movement to create and expand police education programs at colleges and universities across America. This paper details the actions of the well-established Washington State University Department of Police Science and Administration program in response to the passage of the 1965 Act. Among the actions taken, the program’s leaders responded to calls for their expert advice in setting up new programs, increased the number of undergraduates in their program to answer greater demands for college training opportunities for current and future police officers, and admitted more students to their graduate program so as to provide qualified teachers for new academic programs being created through the Act’s funding.     

Millennial Students' Mental Models of Search: Implications for Academic Librarians and Database Developers

Today's students exhibit generational differences in the way they search for information. Observations of first-year students revealed a proclivity for simple keyword or phrases searches with frequent misspellings and incorrect logic. Although no students had strong mental models of search mechanisms, those with stronger models did construct more complex searches.     

Evidencing the impact of teaching-related CPD: beyond the ‘Happy Sheets’

Abstract

In this paper we report the outcomes of a national survey of academic development staff in a range of UK HE Institutions to consider the approaches adopted to evaluate teaching-related continual professional development (CPD). Despite the increasing drive towards accountability, the majority of respondents undertook no benchmarking to establish existing knowledge, there was minimal use of existing data sets, and few evaluated provision longitudinally. We argue that in order to arrive at an evidence-informed approach, evaluation and teaching-related CPD must be clearly conceptualised, and aligned with institutional priorities. The involvement of students with staff CPD could also be usefully explored.     

Town artist

Glenrothes is a new town between Edinburgh and Dundee and is halfway towards its target population of 70,000. It was originally created to form a community for miners moving to a colliery being developed to the south, but when the mine failed the town set about attracting general industry. It has benefited socially from not being a satellite to a close-at-hand city.The town is pleasantly situated astride the River Leven to the south of the Lomond Hills. The coastline and countryside of Fife around offers excellent recreational facilities. The town itself has been developed throughout with low-rise housing and plenty of open spaces.In 1968 the Development Corporation advertised for an artist to contribute creatively to the external built environment of the town. David Harding was appointed and some of his work since then is described here. The text below is from an address given to officials of other new towns in Scotland, which — like many other local authorities — are keen to provide similar appointments.David Harding was born in Leith in 1937. He attended Edinburgh College of Art from 1955 to 1959 studying the uses of glass, ceramics and concrete in architectural situations. After a year at Moray House College of Education he spent three years teaching in various parts of Scotland. From 1963 to 1967 he developed an arts section in a bush teacher training college in Nigeria. He was self-employed the following year and executed works in Edinburgh, Falkirk, Paisley, Galashiels, Hamilton and the Outer Hebrides. In 1968 he was appointed town artist by Glenrothes Development Corporation. He is married with five children.     

Science identity as a landscape of becoming: rethinking recognition and emotions through an intersectionality lens

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this conceptual paper, I put forward an argument about the conceptualization of science identity as a landscape of becoming by placing emphasis on...